


The girl who has forgotten (The Wolves of Winterfell Remix)

by pamymex3girl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canonical Character Death mentions, Gen, Reunions, Siblings, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:16:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4233552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamymex3girl/pseuds/pamymex3girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere far away, far from the home she once knew – the home she can no longer remember, or she can but she does not wish too – there is a girl who does not remember her name, nor anything of the life she came from. </p>
<p>Until the night she dreams of wolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The girl who has forgotten (The Wolves of Winterfell Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Wolves of Winterfell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/434089) by [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k). 
  * In response to a prompt by [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k) in the [remixmadness2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2015) collection. 



> Written for the Remix madness and I hope that the original author likes this story somewhat. This is my first try at a Song of ice and fire fanfiction so I hope someone likes it. No beta so all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> I don't own anything. The characters and lands belong to George R.R. Martin and the original idea belongs to the original author.

Somewhere far away, far from the home she once knew – the home she can no longer remember, or she can but she does not wish too – there is a girl who does not remember her name, nor anything of the life she came from.

Who she once was is long gone, faded away by years of being other people, by years of trying to be anything but _herself._ Until everything that made her her was gone, taken away piece by piece by the cruelty of other people. Her memories, such as they are, are nothing but fuzzy moments of a life she’s not sure she ever lived, of a life she’s not quite sure ever truly existed.

But in her dreams they’re there, the memories, her whole life.

In her dreams she cannot will them away.

She sits alone in the great hall of a ruined castle, the name of which she cannot recall, and the memories play out around her. They’re fuzzy and she can’t quite distinguish them but they’re there, they’re hers, they’re real. Fuzzy memories of moments she wishes would fade away forever – _the swing of a sword, the name Arry, a man with a wolf’s head, a woman dead by the water’s side, two young boys dying in these very ruins._ And memories of moments she wishes she could retain forever, close to her heart – _sibling running through the hall together, a mother’s kiss, a father’s hug, love and laughter, and direwolves, so many wolves._

In her dreams she knows it all.

\----------------------

 

In the morning she wakes alone with a feeling of profound emptiness in her heart.

And no time to dwell on it.

She’s not a little girl anymore, she is woman now, someone who’s never lived in those ruins. Someone who’s never known or run with wolves, not truly, someone to whom the words _Winter is coming_ and the direwolf mean nothing.

She has a life to live now, people she must see, things she must do.

Still she feels empty.

But she does not remember why, or she does not care to.

She’s not sure which is worse.

\---------------------

 

Then, one night, the wolf dream comes.

She sits in the great hall of that old ruined castle, the name of which she cannot recall and she waits. She waits for the person that will soon walk through those doors. She knows someone is coming, though she cannot say who, or even how she knows, but at some point someone will walk in through those doors and cross the hall to where she sits.

Someone will soon come, all she must do is wait.

And come she does.

It’s a young girl, thirteen perhaps, and she looks just like she remembers her, in that strange fuzzy way that she remembers things. She’s beautiful with long hair and a crown resting on her head. She’s paced by a pack of wolves, black and grey, lean and hungry. The wolves encircle them, but the girl is not afraid, not anymore. The other girl, the one she knows and yet does not, lays a blade at her feet.

“Arya Horseface,” she says, “ you’ve lost your sword.”

\----------------------

 

When she wakes she finally, finally _remembers._

Perhaps she always has, deep down. The memories, after all, have always been there, always a part of her, she’s just never allowed them to come to the surface. But there’s nothing left to hold them back now, the damn has been broken.

_Arya Stark,_ she whispers to no one, _Arya Stark of Winterfell._

She’s up then, suddenly, searching through her meagre belongings until she finds it, the blade from her dreams. It’s similar to the one she uses now, though clearly it was meant for a child and she has not truly held it in years.

_Needle,_ she whispers, _there you are._

As if it had been the sword who was lost and not her.

(“I have a gift for you.” Jon Snow says, “All good swords need names.” He continues. “I will miss you, little sister.” She remembers him saying, as she jumped up and held him close, whispering her sword’s name in his ear.)

For the first time since she set foot on these lands she allows Arya Stark to live, to remember, to breathe, to _be._

And she remembers.

She remembers Winterfell in its glory, her father smiling, her mother’s hug. There’s Bran making stupid jokes, climbing the walls of their home, and Rickon small and following her everywhere. There’s brave, brave Rob, always smiling at her. The soldiers, and the servants, and the people she once knew the names of, and still does if she’s truly honest.

There’s Jon Snow smiling at her and gifting her a sword.

There’s Sansa Stark in a beautiful dress.

_“Arya Stark,”_ she whispers again. “ _I am Arya Stark of Winterfell.”_

\-----------------------

 

Before the sun sets she leaves the place she lived in for years.

(Not her home, never her home, for home is far, far away and long gone.)

She leaves the door open behind her, the food untouched for, she thinks, there is someone out there that is need of these things that she no longer requires.

The swords she carries with her, the one she uses and the one that is filled with memories of her home.

(Her home that burned down, her home that is long gone.)

She board the ship that will take her back to Westeros with the last money she has and stares forward towards the lands that are her home.

She never turns back.

\----------------

 

Now in her dreams she runs with wolves.

Through the ruins of the castle that was once her home.

One wolf always runs beside her and Arya knows, without being told, who it is and why she is here. She’s always there by her side and Arya nips playfully at her heals, at her ears.

When she wakes she can still hear the words _stop it_ and _little sister._

\-------------

 

During the day, as she waits to arrive home, she remembers.

She remembers it all.

And then she realizes that everything is frozen in time, frozen as what they were the last time she saw them. Her mother always sitting by her brother’s bed, praying for his health, just like the last time Arya laid eyes on her. (Sometimes all that she can remember is her mother lying dead in the water, but Arya pushes that memory away, pretends she does not know the truth.) Her father is always brave and kind, listening to her, kissing her forehead. (Brave and on his knees, staring at the crowd.) Rickon is always that small child, running through Winterfell and Bran is always climbing it’s walls. Jon Snow, forever frozen at sixteen, always handing her a sword, leaving for the night’s watch. Sansa Stark, forever frozen as a child, wearing pretty dresses and about to marry a prince.

Only Rob is no longer a child like he was the last time she saw him, standing on the grounds of Winterfell. No he is a man, on his horse, with a wolf’s head instead of his own.

She wishes she _could_ remember him, the way he was the last time she saw him but she can’t.

\---------------

Nymeria is there waiting for her in the lands of Westeros.

Just as she knew the wolf would be.

She slips in her direwolfs skin without a thought, feeling at home, feeling like she’s finally whole.

Over the years, ever since she discovered that she could, she has slipped into many skins. She has found that wolves and dogs are the easiest, the fastest, the best. And yet, every time she shared their skin, she had known something was missing. She’d shared the skin of horses, flying over the land, easily calming them once she slipped into their skin.

But of all the animals, besides Nymeria of course, Arya likes birds the best.

She loves the feeling of flying high above in the sky, staring at the ground below. She loves the feeling of being able to see the whole world lying at her feet.

She loves being that free.

\--------------

 

As Nymeria she waits in the middle of the High Road.

She could have approached as a girl, as Arya Stark, she knows, but she did not. Somehow she knew, though she can’t explain how, that this place is not where they shall meet.

Like the true Starks they are they shall meet again in the North.

In their home.

Suddenly she can feel Sansa, alongside her in Nymeria’s skin. It’s the closest they’ve been since they walked together in king’s landing, the closest they’ve been since they watched their father die. She wants to hold her close, keep her by her side. And she wants to prove to her that she is still Arya, still her little sister, still who she has always been, that nothing has really changed.

_GET OUT STUPID_

And Sansa is suddenly gone.

She sees her sister fall from her horse and for a moment she watches as all the man around her panic. She slips away into the woods, far away from her older sister. She turns around just once and sees Sansa standing beside her horse.

_“Arya,”_ she hears Sansa say. “ _Arya.”_

She could go to her, instead she turns and runs.

\--------------

 

If you listen closely to the whispers you can always hear the truth.

You just must learn to weed through all the lies and misinformation.

They speak of the new queen, Daenerys Targaryen and Arya cannot remember if she ever heard that name before, or if that even matters. They speak of Tyrion Lannister and how he helped this new queen gain her throne and no matter how hard she tries all Arya can remember about him is that he was _the imp._ Mostly however they whisper about the queen’s three large dragons. Like everyone else Arya is fascinated by the story of the beasts and wonders how different the world would look from their eyes, how high she could fly then.

It’s the whispers of Winterfell she waits for however.

It’s those that she soaks up and remembers.

The new queen, they all whisper, has handed Winterfell and the North back to the last of the Starks. They’ve handed all that was once her fathers, and should have been her brother’s, back to Sansa Stark and her husband. They’ve named her the Princess of Winterfell.

The last of the Starks is riding to her home in the North they whisper.

And so does her sister, though this they don’t know, nor say.

\----------

 

Sansa is not the last of the Starks she wants to say but never does.

There is another girl in the world, the young one, Arya, the one they have all forgotten about. The girl everyone thinks died years ago, lost in the devastated world of the war of the five kings, a girl no one saw again after her whole family was destroyed.

There is another Stark, she thinks, no longer a little girl but a woman.

She too is coming home now.

And there is a boy too, a man now assuming he lives still, and oh how she hoped he does. (The stories of the wall are few and far in between and not one of them has been enough to tell her whether or not her brother lives still.) He is not a Stark but a Snow, but it matters not, for a part of their family he is. _When I get back home, when I get back to Sansa, I’ll convince her to give Jon the name Stark so he can truly be one of us. Even if he is a member of the Night’s watch and no longer in need of it._

Not whole, for they can never be again, but a family nevertheless.

The last of the Starks, together at last.

\---------------

 

She arrives in Winterfell in the morning.

Through the ruins of her home she walks, snow crushing beneath her feet as she carefully walks through the rubble, knowing exactly where to plant her feet. No one has been here since it burned to the ground, it seems, no one has been here since her brothers died here. (Not since they burned with their home. At least Arya assumes that they _burned.)_

But on her walk through the ruins Arya sees not the death of her brothers nor the ruin of her family.

No, she sees, what has once been.

The beautiful castle, the grandness of the Starks. Winterfell in all its glory. Her father is there, his voice calming, always by her side, smiling at her from wherever he stands. She sees Rob and Jon sparring on the grounds, laughing as the close brothers they once were. She can see Bran climbing the walls, running high above the ground. Rickon is running through the ground, forever the child. Her sister walks through the gardens, wearing beautiful dresses.

And she sees herself, the child she had once been, running around, being happy.

They’re here, she knows, the Starks, _all_ of them.

She can _feel_ them.

 

\------------

 

Just like in her dreams she waits in the great hall of Winterfell.

The roof of the great hall has collapsed and the furnishings are long gone but it is still _home._

Beside her Nymeria waits with her and this is how Arya knows it is not a dream, for in her dreams Arya is always waiting alone.

At night she comes, flanked by wolves. They are black and grey, they are lean and hungry, just like they were in her dreams. They are her true honour guard, Arya thinks, the honour guard of the princess of Winterfell. Unlike in her dreams Sansa is no longer a child, no longer frozen in time, but a grown woman. She is beautiful and wears a sliver circlet with running wolves etched into its silver.

There are many things Arya wants to say, many things she could and perhaps should say, but she can’t find the right words. Not yet, anyway.

“I thought you were dead.” Arya says.

“I thought _you_ were dead.” Sansa counters.

That Arya understands for she has been lost for so long, gone for so long. She got lost in the world that swallowed her family whole.

“I hear they call you the princess of Winterfell now.”

“I didn’t…” Sansa tries to swallow her sobs but does not succeed. Arya too tries to keeps the sobs in, tries very hard but does not succeed. "I didn't know who I was. I forgot to be a Stark, Arya. He called me Alayne. He called me Alayne and made me call him father, and I was starting to _believe_ , until the wolves came."

And Arya Stark, who long, long ago, when she was a small child, once proclaimed to hate her sister, cannot stand to hear another word. Cannot listen to anything else without holding her sister, not anymore, she has waited long enough.

She flies forward, colliding with her sister in something that is both a tackle and an embrace. Sansa, older now, and wiser, clings to her as if she is still a small child.

“You never forgot, _never.”_ Not like me, Arya thinks but does not say, not the way I tried to push the memories away, until they were nothing but a fuzzy mess.“ You found me. You brought me back. _Arya Horseface, you’ve lost your sword,_ remember.” Remember Sansa, we were here before once, the both of us, in our dreams, even if it makes no sense. We stood in these very halls and you laid a blade at my feet and that is how I knew, and you must have too, that it was finally time to go home, finally time to remember.

Sansa begins to cry then, in the hall of their childhood, in the arms of her sister.

Arya too can no longer stop her tears.

\--------------

 

There they stand, the last two known Starks, the only Stark girls left in the world.

Wolves circling around them.

One direwolf by their side.

Clinging to each other, crying, holding on to each other, never wanting to let go.

The ghosts of Winterfell, their lost family encircles them but they cannot see it.

They have finally come home.

They are no longer lost, they have no longer forgotten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
